Tsinghua Summer Mini-Course: Chinese Epistemology

As part of a regular summer program in the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, I had the pleasure of meeting a circle of bright, enthusiastic students and up-and-coming young colleagues while teaching a mini-course this July. The course was devoted to early Chinese epistemology, which besides its inherent interest offers many potential insights and…

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Ren Da Talk: A Daoist Critique of Morality

The third leg of my recent Beijing trip was a visit to Renmin University to see old friends Li Jifen and Liu Wei and to meet a number of new friends, including some brilliant graduate students. My talk was a Chinese version of this paper, which sketches Zhuangist reasons for rejecting morality as a guide…

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Beida Lectures: Zhuangzi and Xunzi

The week of June 26–30 I delivered two lectures in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University and greatly enjoyed meeting graduate students and colleagues there. My deep thanks to Professor Zheng Kai for organizing this visit and Dr. Huachao Wang for all his efforts making arrangements. Especially meaningful was that the first lecture took…

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ISCP Keynote Address

In June I delivered one of the keynote addresses for the International Society for Chinese Philosophy conference held at UC Riverside, June 20-23. I’m grateful to Lisa Raphals for the invitation to contribute and to Cheng Chung-ying, Tang Siufu, and other audience members for stimulating questions. My talk was titled “Standards Cannot Stand on Their…

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Something from Nothing?

I recently gave a presentation at the 2nd Pan-American Symposium on the History of Logic, held at UCLA June 20-23, 2023, which was dedicated to the theme of “Existence and Nonexistence.” Kudos to the organizers, Milo Crimi, Graziana Ciola, and Calvin Normore, who went out of their way to include contributions exploring the theme of…

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Truth in Early Chinese Philosophy

I’ve argued in the past that in early Chinese philosophical discourse the concept of dao (way) is more fundamental than the concept of truth. In a new article, I give a detailed account of just how truth relates to dao in the philosophy of the Xúnzǐ, the early Chinese “masters” text that probably devotes the…

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Workshop on “Zhuangzi Beyond the Inner Chapters”

I’ll be speaking (virtually) on March 14 at what promises to be a stimulating workshop on the Zhuangzi entitled “2023 Zhuangzi beyond the Inner Chapters in Seoul,” hosted by the K-Academic Expansion Project, Institute of Korean Philosophy and Culture, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, March 14-16. The workshop has been planned and organized by PARK So Jeong…

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